Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1887-01-24
THE LIGHT FANTASTIC"
Those Among the New Workers
Who are Graceful Dancers.

AtAPoC "OHH NAAC WV IS -
Who are Graceful Dancers.
NEW YORK, Jan. 22-We are trench
dous dancers here il New York. Winter
and summer the fiddle and the feet beat
time OketDer. In the halls in Frenchto"n
we see the most lissome women and
graceful men. The ladies wear gay
colors in checks and dresses, and have
the prettiest ways, acting and flirting and
often lifting their gowns insinuatingly,
just to disclose an inch OF white muslin.
In Dutchtown, On the east side, the very
babies waltz in the streets, and even If
the adults do sometimes sweep around
with the heft and force of Animated can
non balls and lift their partners of the
floor, they are nearly always graceful.
And then the Irish, at downtown ball
how certain the music is to reach
down to the feet, even of the girls,
and set them Irilling with their heels
and patting with their toes while their
dresses trembie with borrowed excite
ment. Tue most fervOr, though, is at the
Scotch balls and dances after supper,
when reel is called. The girls are III
one row and the men in another, advance
ing, retreaClng, wheeling, now with one
foot up and now with the other. The less
expert couples drop out pair by pair until
at last only the best couple is left. The
applauding shouts. The woman, red
faced and laughing, comes to ner finest
movements and lifts her dress That they
may be seen and appreciated, keeping
her elbows akimbo. Shouts greet the in
nocent but enthusiastic act, and all eyes
watch the chubby stockings and the
tWinklng feet beneath them. AT last the
piper PUSHES in and madly joins the dance,
piping like good fellow all tue While.
CURIOUS SORT OF DANCER.
The funniest dancing known to civil
tzatlon Is That OF the 'pIyoters." You
don't know what plvOter 1sI Well,
in the slang of the city she is shop girl
or factory hand who gives up most of her
nights to dancing. Some never work at
anything else. They pursue plcnics all
summer and balls all winter. The pivOter
is one of our institutions. The boys and
men she pivOts with may be mechanics
or clerks or thieves or lOaters, according
to what sort OF piVoter she Is. She learns
the poetic science of dancing to the music
OF barrel organ on the side
walks. She practices great deal
on the wharves with the Otner
girls and "fellers" to the wheeling
of an accordion or a mouth organ, and
quite often, when the tenement roofs are
crowded with people, she dances up there
with whistling boy for her orchestra
Is
snort, the pivOter is forever dancing like
a gas jet in draughty hallway. There
is alNa avs at least one piVoters' ball every
night The year around, and you ought to
see one. The girl is certain to be stunied,
leather-skinned, little-eyed and with a
bang reaching to her eyes and looking ike
a curtain of fine black wire or horse nair
Her skirts hang over short hoops and
sway from side to side, Independent OF her
tUh ~ nd vp Cf ale ~,
bell.
AN INTERESTING DANCE.
She and her partner stand apart with
one OF his hands IN hers, stuck out rigidly
at one side like bag catcher on a mail
tram. Her ether hand is on her hin, and
his other hand Is spread cut on her back
fiat, like a plaster. II it Is warm room
you will see the print OF that hand on her
dress when he lets go. She and ne pause
a second before dancing. While she as
sumes a stolid expression, as if she was
about to dance up to a police justice and
receive a heavy sentence, while her part
ner wears an air of mingled melancholy
and resignation. They all look like that.
They are SO fearful of revealing how de-
lighted they are that they try to look
bored. Fashionable folks sometimes put
on the same airs. In dancing they circle
around with a jerky, stItf-backed, spas
mOdic motion, like lot of windlasses
pulled around by invisible bars. They
revoIve a little in one place, then slide
over to another corner OF the room and
pivot there, and so they move from place
to place, spinning little. then sliding
and spinning a little more. Like the
Prince OF Wales. they never reverse, but
unlike him, they never speak or smile
during the serious business of dance
and, all the time. they pump away at the
air with their Outstretched arms as if that
was the most essential part of Waiting.
JULIAN RALPH.